


Do No Harm

by Redbyrd



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s09e09 Prototype, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-14
Updated: 2006-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28663551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbyrd/pseuds/Redbyrd
Summary: Dr. Carolyn Lam thought she knew just how difficult working at the SGC could be. She'd already dealt with the effects of lethal artifacts and an alien plague. But she hadn't expected her newest patient to pose an ethical dilemma of Gordian proportions.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The eloquent expression on Lexa Doig's face at a couple of points was the only look we got at what had to be a difficult situation for Dr Lam. I wondered how the episode went from her point of view. *Many* thanks to Aurora Novarum for a superb and speedy beta!

DISCLAIMER:  
The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author. And *many* thanks to Aurora Novarum for a superb and speedy beta!  
\---------------------------------------------------------------

Carolyn Lam grabbed a phone as the paged blared over the speakers. "Lam. What's going on?"

"We have a call for a medical team off-world, doctor," Master Chief Sergeant Walter Harriman told her. "It's SG-1."

Carolyn rolled her eyes. "Isn't it always?" She was starting to wonder how Janet Fraiser had managed. As far as Carolyn could tell she'd only been off-world a dozen times in seven years. Lately, it seemed like SG-1 couldn't go a week without some medical emergency. Of course a lot of that was Jackson. He seemed to be a medical emergency all by himself.

Harriman chuckled, "None of them are injured this time, doctor. They're reporting they've found a man in a stasis pod on the planet. They defrosted him and he's having seizures."

Carolyn muttered something profane under her breath and said, "Why…never mind. I'm on my way."

"They're recommending full biological protection gear, doctor," Harriman warned.

Again? "Thank you, chief," she said.

#

When they stepped out of the wormhole onto the planet's surface, Lam was pleasantly surprised, not only to see trees, which hadn't been a feature of her first trip off-world, but that she didn't feel nearly as queasy as she had the last time. Apparently Mitchell had been right when he'd told her the first time was the worst.

Carter met them at the gate, already in her protective suit.

"What's the situation?" Carolyn asked.

"Daniel and Teal'c found an underground chamber, some kind of laboratory," Carter told her. "They went down with Mitchell. There was a man preserved in a pod. They let him out and he started seizing." Carter was leading them at a fast walk into the woods.

"Why did they unfreeze him without a med team standing by?" Carolyn asked.

"Ah, apparently it was an accident," Carter said.

"And why the call for protective gear?" she asked.

"Well," Carter said, her voice muffled by the suit, "This is an Ancient laboratory as far as they can tell, and we've found a surviving Ancient before this who still had-"

"The Ancient plague," Carolyn said. "I've read about it." Two plagues in two months?

"So far, only Daniel, Teal'c and Mitchell have been exposed to the patient," she said.

"But Teal'c is immune?" Carolyn asked.

"We don't know that," Carter said. "The last time we encountered this plague, Teal'c still had a symbiote. A symbiote is the only cure we know of. Tretonin may not work."

"Right," Carolyn filed the information with other peculiarities of this team and lengthened her stride a bit to keep up with the taller Carter. She was still trying to figure out why Jackson, Teal'c and Vala had not sickened with the Prior plague. One was on Tretonin. One was a former host and had naquada in her bloodstream. And the other was perfectly normal, at least if you didn't count twice having turned his body into energy and back again.

They were approaching a clearing and Carolyn could see one of the men from SG-5 standing there waiting beside a circle of some sort embedded in the soil. "Here," Carter said.

"Where?" Carolyn asked. "I thought you said this place was underground?"

"Step into the ring, ma'am," the lieutenant instructed. One segment of the ring had been pried up and the young man was fiddling with something underneath.

Lam, her nurse and paramedic crowded into the circle. Then there was a ringing metallic noise as a series of narrow cylinders appeared from nowhere, and her eyes were dazzled with light. Then the cylinders were sinking not quite to a floor that hadn't been there a moment ago and disappearing. She stepped hurriedly out of the circle and gave it a suspicious look before staring around at the Ancient laboratory.

"Ring transporter," Baker whispered. She nodded, vaguely recalling the term from some of the inordinate number of briefing documents she'd been given. She was guiltily aware she probably should be trying to read more of those...as it was, she was still trying to get up to speed on the reports that had been specifically flagged for medical issues and reviewing the medical files of the personnel whose health she was now responsible for. SG-1's medical files alone had taken hours to read.

The man lying on the floor was apparently her patient. She noted with approval they'd laid him on a blanket from their emergency kits and turned him on his left side, with his head positioned to keep him from suffocating if should he vomit. He was lying very still and seemed to be unconscious.

Jackson got up from his position crouched by the man's side, taking his hand from the pulse point at his neck. "He seized for about five minutes after he was defrosted," Jackson said. "His pulse is one-twenty, but weak."

"Colonel Carter said you defrosted him by accident?" Carolyn said as she changed places with him.

There was a brief pause. "That's right," Jackson said.

"It was my fault," Mitchell said. "I touched something I shouldn't have." He gave Jackson a sheepish look.

She nodded as she checked him over, while Baker readied the stretcher. "All right. Let's take him to the SGC, full medical quarantine." She glanced up at Jackson, Mitchell and Teal'c. "You three get into protective clothing-"

"I'm going to stay here and work on figuring out what this place is," Jackson said.

Carolyn said, "Doctor, if you have the Ancient plague-"

"If I have the Ancient plague," he said, the words machine-gun-fire rapid but perfectly distinct, "then I've already been exposed and there's nothing you can do, so it would be a lot more productive to translate the records here while I can-"

"But-" she attempted to break in.

"But the truth is," he didn't let her get a second word out, "that we have no idea why this man was frozen, and if it is the plague or some other contagion, our best chance of finding out anything else about it lies with the records here. "

"Doctor-" she tried again.

"And since we don't have any other people really fluent in Ancient in this galaxy, I'm the best person to do that." He glanced meaningfully at Mitchell.

"Fine, then Teal'c and Carter and I-" Mitchell started.

"I would like to remain as well," Teal'c said. "It is possible I may be able to assist Daniel Jackson. "

Mitchell nodded. "Okay, Carter and I will go back with Dr. Lam. Teal'c, keep an eye on everything, will you?"

Teal'c inclined his head politely.

"Doctor?" Mitchell said.

Carolyn had to wonder about the team dynamic of SG-1. No doubt Carter would obey a direct order. But Jackson and Teal'c appeared to be 'under Mitchell's command' only in the most nominal sense.

"The sooner we get this man back to the SGC, the sooner we can find out if he's any danger," Lam said. She watched with interest as Baker and Whitney carried the stretcher to the rings. Teal'c touched a control at the side of the room and they leapt out of the floor.

"Those things are really safe?" she couldn't help asking.

"We've been through them hundreds of times," Jackson said, not entirely reassuringly before turning back to the alien console.

"They are indeed safe, doctor," Teal'c told her calmly. They sank back down, and she managed not to hesitate as she, Mitchell and Carter stepped back into their compass to be whisked back to the surface.

#

Lam finished her examination of the patient and collected her samples. In the next room she saw Carter patiently submitting to having blood drawn while Mitchell bantered with the nurses.

She was still getting to know the members of SG-1. She'd actually expected a team with a reputation like SG-1's to be a bit arrogant. In actuality, they were surprisingly down-to-earth, and far too focused on the task in front of them to spend much time dwelling on past accomplishments.

Mitchell was by far the easiest to understand. Typical pilot- she'd met hundreds like him. Though he'd displayed a remarkable perseverance and self-discipline in recovering from his injuries in Antarctica. She'd seen his medical records. That he was actually walking, let alone fit for active duty, was a testament to his determination.

Carter had been both warmer and more approachable than she'd expected. Lam had found a similarity of outlook that surprised her until she'd read the file on Jacob Carter and realized like her, Carter was both a military brat and a general's daughter. Still, the experiences the woman had been through- implantation with a symbiote, injuries, death, even having her consciousness transferred into a computer- left Lam a little uncertain what to make of her.

Teal'c she had first met after Jackson's collapse due to the Goa'uld bracelets. Once they'd transferred the unconscious Daniel and Vala to the infirmary, the enormous alien had taken a seat next to Daniel Jackson's bed. She'd suggested he come back later.

"That will not be necessary, doctor," he said with immovable courtesy. "I will remain here until Daniel Jackson awakens."

"Doctor, may I speak with you for a moment?" Hamilton, the duty nurse, said to her.

She turned to the younger man with a curious look. He led the way to her office and shut the door before speaking. "He won't leave, ma'am," he said.

"What?" she replied.

"It's an SG-team thing," he said. "They're all like that. If one of them's in here, the others won't let them wake up alone."

Actually that made sense. She'd seen more than one instance of soldiers waiting to check on an injured team member in the short time she'd been here. It was actually rather touching. But this was a hospital. "Brightman may have allowed-" she began.

"Ma'am, Dr. Brightman didn't really allow it, but there wasn't a lot she could do, either. Field teams- they go through hell together, ma'am. They get really close. Many of the teams are like that, but SG-1 more than most...they've been together since the beginning."

"Mitchell hasn't," Lam pointed out.

The man looked faintly disconcerted. "I meant the old SG-1, doctor," he said. "Anyway, Teal'c might leave if General Landry asked him. But if he does, we're likely to have General O'Neill drop by. And frankly, Teal'c is a lot more restful to have hanging around."

"What's wrong with General O'Neill?" the rather bemused Lam asked.

"What isn't?" Hamilton said frankly. "He fidgets, he builds little houses out of medical supplies...it's like having a bored six year old. Except he's a general, so it's hard to get him to leave."

"I see," Lam said faintly. Every job had its idiosyncrasies, but the SGC was proving to have more than most.

"It's not all bad," Hamilton hastened to assure her. "If one of them needs pain medication and won't ask, the others are likely to rat them out and then harass them into taking it. And just let us drop a hint they aren't eating well, and the next thing you know, there'll be a steak or a pizza smuggled in when we aren't looking." He grinned. "And sometimes when we are. The last time Dr. Jackson was shot, General O'Neill brought a couple of extras along for the duty staff..." he looked at Lam's unamused expression. "Dr. Brightman was in on it, ma'am."

"So what you're saying is, I can't throw him out," Lam said.

The man shrugged. "Not at all, ma'am. You're in charge. I just thought you might find it helpful to know some of the - subtext."

"Right," She looked at the senior airman's bland expression carefully. "Thank you, nurse."

Teal'c had stayed and Lam had observed his calm and imperturbable manner as he explained the function of the bracelets to Jackson and Mitchell.

Of them all, Jackson was the one she found hardest to make out. From the stories she'd heard before they met, she'd expected someone a little shy and sad, polite and good-looking in a bookish way.

The tall, fit man with the scruffy beard did not in any way fit her preconceptions. For one thing, he didn't bother to conceal his annoyance with the alien Vala. Most of the men of Carolyn's acquaintance would have found Vala's frank sensuality attractive, and her unashamed pursuit flattering on some level. Not Jackson. Vala had hurled herself uninhibitedly at him and utterly failed to get through the man's reserve. The rest of the base had watched with bemusement and suppressed hilarity, and Lam was aware of several unofficial betting pools that had sprang up.

He'd never been less than polite to her, which she appreciated, though he'd never seemed especially approachable, either. Perhaps he simply disliked the infirmary. According to his files, he'd certainly spent enough time there.

She found it hard to picture General O'Neill as a close friend of the quiet Jaffa and irritable scientist, though she'd already heard enough stories to know it was the truth. She'd only met O'Neill once, when she'd been up for her current job. She'd wondered a bit when she'd been called in to the interview.

_Carolyn hadn't been looking for a new job, but the Air Force request had made her curious. Particularly since they were interested enough to fly her up to Washington for the interview. She'd been met by a smartly uniformed driver with a government car, and driven, somewhat to her surprise, to the Pentagon. She'd wondered then if her father had had something to do with this._

_The metal detector was something she had expected, the long walk didn't surprise her. The tall silver-haired man in a familiar Air Force uniform playing with a slinky while he listened to the phone was not actually what she had expected. He set the slinky down and waved her to a chair as he said into the phone. "Yeah, thanks, Davis, I have to go."_

_He smiled and leaned over the desk to shake her hand. "General Jack O'Neill. And if you're not Dr. Carolyn Lam, I'm going to have to have words with security."_

_She smiled back, charmed despite her suspicion. "I understand this is something about a job?"_

_"That's right," he said. "We need a medical doctor- but not just any doctor. Someone with both research and clinical background, and a wide variety of experience."_

_"Well, I certainly have that," Carolyn admitted. Though her mother had rather sarcastically asked if she was planning to stay in medical school forever when she'd gone back. She'd trained as a surgeon and even worked two years in the field before going back for a specialty in infectious diseases. She still wasn't sure she'd found the right balance of far-reaching research with hands-on doctoring. "Do you mind if I ask who recommended me?" she asked._

_O'Neill frowned. "Dr. Timothy Harlow, actually. But I won't hold that against you."_

_"Dr. Harlow?" Carolyn was startled and rather pleased that the older doctor would recommend her. "We co-authored a paper a couple of years ago-" One of very few he had published in recent years- much of his work was classified, she recalled._

_"I know," O'Neill said. "And various other people who've read your work have said incomprehensible but generally positive things about it."_

_She smiled a little uncertainly. If O' Neill wasn't interested in talking about her medical qualifications, why was he the one interviewing her? "Can you tell me something about the job?"_

_"It's a little more than a job," O'Neill said. "It's more like a combination of medical practice and unparalleled research opportunity."_

_Carolyn wondered a little incredulously if he was actually talking about some kind of government medical experiments. "This is some kind of military medical research facility?" she asked dubiously._

_"Not at all," O'Neill leaned across the table and looked steadily at her. "I'm limited in what I can tell you before you've signed a nondisclosure agreement. But it's a medical unit dealing with everything from combat injuries to exotic diseases. Every day is a different crisis. You'll see things there you'd never find anywhere else. You also may have to go into the field. The second to last person who held this position was killed during a medevac under fire."_

_Carolyn wondered a little impatiently if that was supposed to scare her. She'd visited some pretty bad parts of the world in her time. "What about the last person?"_

_He nodded at her steadiness. "Brightman? She's pregnant. She requested a transfer to something less- intense."_

_"She requested it, or the military doesn't think she can handle it?" Carolyn asked._

_"She requested it," O'Neill said. "And I don't blame her. I spent eight years there. I wouldn't have stayed if I'd had kids, either." There was a faint shadow behind his dark eyes. His gaze went back to her face. "The real question here, is can you handle it? Your record is good- but so are the records of all of the other candidates."_

_She shrugged. "I guess you won't know unless you hire me."_

_He smiled faintly. "You aren't going to tell me about all the medical crises you've resolved successfully in the past?"_

_"You just said this project would have problems I've never seen before. I'm trying not to make assumptions," Carolyn replied, a little tartly._

_O'Neill laughed. "Much better not to."_

He hadn't been kidding, she thought. The job didn't call for a generalist, but rather a specialist in half-a-dozen different disciplines. She could never have anticipated any of the things she'd seen or read about. Never in a million years.

#

Mitchell and Carter waited out their quarantine with a modicum of patience, but were visibly relieved when the staff came to let them out. Their blood had been tested for any sign of known contagions, as well as doing the usual checks for Goa'uld and alien implants. Which would have made Carolyn giggle at the absurdity of it, except she'd been told SG-1 had come back at least once with alien devices implanted. She'd yet to find that file. But the most telling test from her point of view had been the white cell counts. Despite all they'd learned in the last few years, there was still a relatively good chance of missing something completely new. Their most reliable indicator of infection was still the response of the human immune system to foreign organisms.

She took one last glance at the MRIs, and turned to Mitchell and Carter, "Well, you're clean. No sign of any exposure to infectious agents."

They nodded, Mitchell looking relieved. "Great how's pod man?"

Carolyn said "Also going to be fine. I suspect the convulsions were just a reaction to coming out of stasis." Not that they had much in the way of test results on people coming out of stasis. The only thing she'd had to compare it to were the readings Dr. Beckett had sent back on the Atlantis administrator who'd traveled in time. And she'd been dying when she was revived. But their mysterious patient had been interesting for more than one reason- "Although his preliminary test results were quite interesting."

"How?" Carter asked.

"We've been able to study the genetic characteristics of the Ancients from the database sent back to us from Atlantis our patient X definitely shows some physiological similarities."

"You think he's an Ancient?" Carter asked.

"I'm running a more detailed analysis. There are some other strange anomalies but in the mean time why don't we ask him?" They walked over to the bed. "Hello, I'm Dr Carolyn Lam," she said, keeping her voice warm and friendly. Even if they didn't have a common language, the tone would be reassuring. "Do you understand me?"

The man responded feebly, "Yes."

Carolyn spoke in short sentences, calm and soothing. "Good. Try to relax. There's nothing to be afraid of. You're safe. You're on a planet called Earth.

Carter said, "I'm Lt Colonel Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force."

"Cameron Mitchell. Ditto on the other stuff," Mitchell said. Lam nearly rolled her eyes. The man was semiconscious, and they were hitting him with both unfamiliar ranks and colloquialisms.

"Can you tell us your name?" Carter asked.

The man said haltingly, "It's...Khalek."

"Khalek," Carter repeated. "We found you on another planet in stasis in what looked like some sort of science lab."

The man's eyes went to the busy confusion of the infirmary. "Earth?" Khalek asked.

"Yeah, that's right," Mitchell confirmed.

"I want to go home," the man said.

Carter jumped on that, "Home? Where is home?"

Khalek said, "He took me. I was a prisoner. S'been so long. He did experiments on me."

"He who?" Mitchell asked.

"I never knew his name," Khalek said. "Please. I just want to go home."

Mitchell and Carter took that as carte blanche to bombard the man with questions that were clearly incomprehensible to him in his confused state. Carolyn firmly cut them off so her patient could get some rest.

Khalek watched them leave with a trace of apprehension. Carolyn smiled at him gently. "Try not to worry. You're safe here, and we'll do what we can to get you home."

He stared up at her, then nodded in faint acceptance. As he moved, he grimaced slightly.

"Are you in pain?" Lam asked.

The man hesitated, then said. "I am sore. Did I- fall?"

Carolyn said, "You had a seizure when you were coming out the stasis pod. You're probably bruised." She looked at his chart, then wrote a script for a light painkiller. "I can give you something to make you feel better." She turned to Baker, who had just come in and sent him for the medication.

As she checked Khalek's pulse one last time, she caught him glancing up at her. When he saw her looking, he tried to smile. But there was a hint of something odd in his pale eyes. She dismissed the thought...he was an alien, she had to expect his reactions would be a bit off.

She left him to recuperate and went to see how SG-16 were doing. They'd managed to walk through a patch of some nettle-like plant and were very uncomfortable, though responding well to anti-histamine injections.


	2. Chapter 2

When the security team burst in, Carolyn was on the phone with the Academy Hospital pharmacist and wondering whether she could find room in her budget for a pharmacist on staff. The pharmacy tech was good, but it just wasn't the same. "Airman Mathews is allergic to Erythromycin," she reminded him. "If he can't take the antibiotic I prescribed with his other medications, what do you—can you hold?"

Without waiting for an answer, she set the phone down and hustled over to where the marines were taking up position near the sleeping Khalek, watching him intently. "What's going on?" she asked.

"General's orders, ma'am," the soldier said. "And he requests that you join him and SG-1 in the briefing room in half an hour."

"Right," Lam acknowledged. Now what?

Now what, was Teal'c and Daniel Jackson coming in for post-mission checks. "What's going on?" She asked, as one of her assistants ran through the already familiar routine.

Jackson's glance flickered in the direction of Khalek and he lowered his voice, "Not here," he said. "But be very careful. He's not what he seems."

"Okay," she said, impressed by his seriousness. She found it difficult to believe the confused man in the bed was truly a threat, but obviously this was something to do with whatever he'd found out in the lab.

When Jackson and Teal'c came back from their MRIs, Carter and Mitchell were in the infirmary waiting. They followed her into her office and shut the door. "What's going on, Daniel?" Carter asked before Carolyn could.

"He's not an Ancient, or the victim of one," Jackson told her. "He's a Goa'uld hybrid. "

Carter's eyes widened. "Like Anna?"

"Exactly," Jackson nodded while once again Carolyn was left floundering by their verbal shorthand. She looked at Mitchell but for once he was as puzzled as she was.

"And the Goa'uld whose DNA he carries is Anubis," Teal'c added.

"I don't remember reading anything about Goa'uld and genetic hybrids," Mitchell said.

"How about NID and genetic hybrids, Cam," Carter suggested.

He snapped his fingers. "Oh, right. LA. They tried to combine Goa'uld DNA with human and got a homicidal split personality."

"The DNA they used came from the remains of a Goa'uld named Bastet," Jackson said. "She was put in storage a couple thousand years ago and knew nothing about us. Anubis is a whole different can of worms."

Lam still didn't recall reading about the events they were mentioning but at least she had some keywords to enter into the database. She noticed Mitchell looking at the clock and was just about to point out they were due in a briefing when the lieutenant colonel spoke.

"We'd better get upstairs," Mitchell said. "The general's expecting us. "

They walked upstairs together, and Carolyn was surprised to see they already had a monitor set up watching Khalek. Her patient looked groggy and half-asleep. She was disturbed to see he was already restrained and under continuous surveillance. Despite all the uniforms and protocol, it still sometimes startled her to remember this was a military base in a state of combat readiness. The ubiquitous security cameras were something she usually managed to ignore.

As her father came in, they all sat down except Jackson, who moved toward the projection screen.

"All right, people," General Hank Landry was every inch the military officer, without a hint of their relationship showing. "What do we have?"

Jackson launched without preamble into his explanation. "Our guest isn't an innocent victim, of the Goa'uld or anyone else. He's a Goa'uld hybrid. Partially human, but he carries a significant amount of genetic material from the Goa'uld Anubis."

Landry frowned. "This is similar to what the NID tried to do in Los Angeles?"

Lam surmised the incredibly efficient Walter had provided Landry with all the appropriate files prior to the meeting. She wondered if there was any way she could get him to copy her on that sort of thing. At least when it involved medical matters.

"Yes, but not really," Jackson said, answering her father's question. "The NID took three years and forty-five tries to get a hybrid that survived. Anubis had access to Ancient technology that speeded up the project considerably."

He looked toward the monitor, where Khalek still appeared confused and not in any way threatening.

Jackson continued, "The log entry said Anubis managed to replicate his pre-ascension DNA using the genetic manipulation device. Then he combined it with human DNA and was able to rapidly grow our friend there."

Carolyn told them, "The analysis I did suggests that Khalek is significantly more evolved then we are...much more in line with the human form of the Ancients prior to ascension."

Mitchell leaned back in his chair and looked to the general. "So he could have all kinds of super funky powers." Carolyn suppressed a smile. It would only encourage him. Not that it wasn't refreshing that these people refused to let the circumstances squash their sense of humor.

Carter said, "Well the subjects Nirrti manipulated demonstrated telekinetic and psychic capabilities."

Carolyn frowned. Who the devil was Nirrti? The name was vaguely familiar. She felt like she was coming in at chapter 20, with no idea who the players were. She scribbled a note on her pad to remind herself to look it up later.

"Like the Priors?" Mitchell asked.

Jackson said, "The goal of the experiment seems to be to create an advanced human."

"With a little Anubis blended in," Landry qualified.

Carter asked, "You said he used his pre-ascended DNA. Do you think he was doing these experiments before he ascended?"

Lam added, Anubis to her list, though at least she'd already read quite a bit about him.

Jackson shook his head definitely, "No. See, that time line doesn't track with the log. Plus it says he had to reproduce his DNA. Which means he was doing all this after he ascended and was sent back by the ancients- well half way."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Carter protested. " Even a highly evolved human host wouldn't be as advanced as he was- why bother?"

Mitchell said, "Maybe he didn't like being stuck in Limbo. Maybe even a small step back to mortality was worth it to him on some level."

"Perhaps he was attempting to create an even more powerful servant than the Kull warriors," Teal'c said. The large Jaffa had been so silent Lam had almost forgotten he was there.

Jackson spoke rapidly, as always, "No matter what Anubis' ultimate goal was, Khalek is extremely dangerous."

"Options?" her father asked.

"Put him back in his pod," Mitchell suggested.

Carter said, "I doubt we'd be able to get the one from 584 back here."

Teal'c objected, " If we leave him there others could circumvent the security and find him as we did."

Carolyn blinked, not sure whether Jackson or Teal'c was more paranoid on the subject.

"We could post Guards," Carter suggested, but even Carolyn could see that was only a short term solution. How long would they post guards for? Years?

"What about the Antarctic pod?" Mitchell asked.

Jackson gave a funny short almost-laugh. "Look I think we need to consider whether we want to preserve him at all."

Carolyn stopped breathing. Surely he wasn't suggesting-

Her father made a non-committal noise, neither endorsing nor rejecting the idea.

Carolyn's blood chilled. She couldn't be a party to this.

Jackson sighed. "Lo-ook the fact is we don't know how successful Anubis was. Khalek is advanced, yes. But we don't know how far along he actually is. Now if he is aware of his own state of evolutionary advancement- and I'll bet you anything he is- it's possible the only thing keeping him from ascending right now is that he hasn't figured out how."

She was wrong. Jackson wasn't just paranoid. He was insane. But this whole place was insane. Human-alien hybrids, ascension to a higher plane....

"What would that take?" Landry asked.

"I-I don't know uh...." Jackson was still talking fast, with a slight stutter, as if his tongue couldn't keep pace with his thoughts. "Buh But if he can do it If-if if he knows how or figures out how at the very least we're gonna have another Anubis on our hands and at that point it's gonna be too late to stop him."

Carolyn tried to remember what she'd read about Anubis. He'd been the one that brought a giant battle fleet to Earth, she remembered. Her gaze flitted down the table to Mitchell, who was listening intently, humor set aside. It was the battle against Anubis that had nearly killed him.

"Well he couldn't progress his state of being while he was is stasis," Carter said, obviously not wanted to go where Jackson was headed.

Jackson looked at her seriously, "Look, you know I would never suggest this lightly- but he is what he is. And given the danger he poses, I think we have to ask ourselves- what is the point in keeping him alive at all?"

And there it was in plain language. Jackson was proposing they execute a prisoner-her patient- while in custody. Illegal by any stretch of the imagination. Carolyn turned to her father with the rest of them, wondering what he would say.

General Landry said, "I hear ya, Dr Jackson. For the moment we're taking every security precaution we can."

Carolyn wondered numbly if her father's answer would have been any different had she not been present. She'd have been happier if he'd rejected the idea outright.

He continues, "I'll contact Washington discuss how we're going to proceed. In the meantime I suggest all of you learn as much as you can, including what Khalek does and doesn't know." He rose and headed for his office.

Carolyn stared at the others, her reaction virtually unnoticed. All the attention was on Jackson.

"You really think he's that dangerous?" Mitchell asked, not with any real doubt but as if he wanted to reassure himself he'd really heard what he thought he had.

"You really want to have to deal with another Anubis?" Jackson replied soberly.

"Daniel, are you sure you're not--?" Sam Carter asked.

Jackson gave her a puzzled look. "Not what, Sam?"

"I believe what Colonel Carter is trying to ask is whether this might be a 'Jaffa revenge thing'," Teal'c said.

Carter shrugged uncomfortably but didn't deny it.

"Ah," Jackson looked thoughtful for a moment. "No, Sam, it really isn't. Khalek isn't Anubis. He's no more responsible for Anubis' actions than Jack's clone is for anything Jack did before he was created. "

"Colonel O'Neill has a clone? " Mitchell said. "Have I read that file?"

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "It's just, you do have a personal grudge here."

Carolyn remembered reading about the clone in the medical files, but they were already flitting to other topics with dizzying speed. Jaffa revenge thing? Jackson had a personal grudge against Anubis? Now what was that all about? But Jackson was denying it.

"Not against Khalek," Daniel repeated with a trace of regret in his eyes. "Honestly Sam, I did consider whether there was any way to render him safe. But unless we could figure out how to extract the Goa'uld DNA using the genetic manipulation device...and even that might not work...human memory isn't genetic. He might retain it anyway."

"And we don't know nearly enough to even attempt something like that," Carter said.

"No," Jackson agreed. "And you've been in one of those things...would you want to be an experimental test subject?"

Carter shuddered. "God, no."

Carolyn scribbled Jaffa, revenge; Carter, genetic manipulation on the long list of records she wanted to check after this meeting and was almost grateful SG-1 was rising and finally seemed to be through. Normally the patients' medical histories were not the steepest part of the learning curve when you started a new job, but the SGC was proving to be the exception to a lot of rules.

#

She'd barely had time to locate the files and skim the relevant medical reports before the start of the interrogation. She watched with Mitchell, Carter and Teal'c from the monitoring station. Jackson was in the observation room, she realized when he spoke. She almost jumped when she heard his voice issuing from the speakers.

"Khalek, can you hear me?" he asked.

Her patient opened his eyes and said, "Yes." Then he looked down at his bindings.

"My name is Dr Daniel Jackson."

Carolyn wished they had a camera on Jackson's face. She'd thought he was an archaeologist. Why was he even running the interrogation?

Khalek said, "Why have you restrained me like this?" He looked around a bit frantically. "Why is everyone suddenly acting like they fear me?"

"He has no idea what's going on," Carolyn said. "First we rescue him, then we tie him up-"

Mitchell made a 'hush' gesture.

Khalek stared in bewilderment out of the screen.

"Look you can drop the act," Jackson's voice said.

The man continued to protest. "I don't understand. Have you contacted my home world?"

Jackson said calmly, "We found you on your home world. I understand Ancient. Those research notes Anubis left- we know that you were grown in that lab."

Khalek looked increasingly confused, as Jackson continued. "That you possess Anubis' DNA and his genetic memories."

Then Khalek's expression changed, the uneasiness melted away and he smirked up at the camera. "My memories do include you, Dr Jackson. A confrontation you had with my father- I sense it is some time since I was last awake. What has become of him?"

Carolyn stared at the change in demeanor in the man on the screen.

His interrogator's bland tone never wavered. "I'm not here to answer your questions."

That was when Khalek went off on a rant that would have done justice to Freddy Kruger. Carolyn got up quietly and backed out of the room. She felt vaguely ill. This was what they had rescued and brought to her infirmary? And yet- he was her patient. Jackson had just confirmed all their worst fears. What would the military want to do with him now?

"Are you all right?" Carolyn looked up to see she was still standing outside the observation room. Sam Carter was beside her looking concerned.

"I'm-" Carolyn had to stop to think about it. "Confused. I didn't expect him to go off like that."

"You've never really met a typical Goa'uld, have you?" Carter asked. "That was actually pretty usual behavior."

"But he's not a Goa'uld," Carolyn protested. Certainly the malice she'd seen in Khalek's eyes was nothing like the self-serving machinations of Nerus.

"He has the memories of one," Carter said, her eyes faraway for a moment. Then she focused on Lam again. "Daniel once said it was like 'flooding his mind with the thoughts of a thousand Hitlers'."

Carolyn frowned and tried to remember if there was anything in Jackson's medical file about him being implanted with a symbiote.

Carter smiled at her puzzled look. "I know it's a lot to take in," she said. "But the hybrid in LA had a similar reaction. She thought she still was a Goa'uld."

Carolyn resolved to reread the files again and changed tacks. "In the conference room earlier Teal'c said something about a Jaffa revenge?"

"Ah-" Carter shrugged. "The Jaffa are big on revenge. Sometimes to the exclusion of common sense."

"And you were wondering if Dr. Jackson was bent on revenge against Anubis?" Carolyn still felt three steps behind, and if anything more confused.

Carter saw her expression and tried to explain. "Well, Anubis destroyed Daniel's home and killed what was left of his family."

Carolyn could feel the creases deepen in her forehead. "In the attack on Earth?"

"Colonel Carter?" An man in a white lab coat stopped at her elbow, holding a sheaf of papers, then waited politely when he saw she was talking.

"No," Carter said to Carolyn. "On Abydos." She took the papers absently and looked at them. "Oh! I've been waiting for these. I'm sorry. I have to go." She waved the packet apologetically and then followed the other man down the hall.

Lam wasn't sure whether that was helpful or not. If she wasn't mistaken, Carter had just implied Jackson was from another planet. Which she knew wasn't true. But at least the conversation had given her another keyword. She fished the sheet of notes out of pocket and added to her list of things to look up: Abydos.

#

A certain amount of reading later, she'd at least unraveled the Jackson references. Abydos was his wife's home world, and Anubis had destroyed it. Had destroyed it, in fact, after making a deal with the ascended Daniel Jackson to leave it alone. She could certainly see why Carter might be concerned that Jackson wasn't objective.

In fact, she had to wonder what the Air Force was going to want to do to Khalek, now that they had confirmed he had Anubis' memories. The man was injured and the victim of medical experiments. If she understood Carter and the analyses in the files, Khalek wasn't really responsible for his condition. She rose restlessly from behind her desk. She had the sense she should do something but she didn't know what. No one had tried to harm Khalek. She had never been more conscious of her status as a civilian amongst all the military personnel. But she'd sworn an oath too. If only she knew what the military planned to do with her patient-

She went to see her father. His door was open, and as she approached, she could hear him talking. She hesitated, but he waved to her to come in. He was on the speaker phone, she realized, an instant before she recognized the agitated tones of General O'Neill.

"-you're telling me this guy has the memories of Anubis? You want to keep him locked up, but tight, Hank."

"We are, Jack," Landry responded. "In fact Dr. Jackson is questioning whether we should keep him alive at all."

"What?!" O'Neill's bellow made Carolyn jump. "Are you seriously telling me Daniel thinks this guy is too dangerous to live?

"Yes," Landry said.

"Mister 'Give Him A Chance', 'Don't Do This Jack', Dr. 'There Has To Be A Better Way' himself?"

Landry confirmed again, "Yes-"

O'Neill interrupted him, "Then why the hell is he still alive, Hank?"

"You know better than that, Jack," Landry replied.

Carolyn couldn't help but be slightly relieved.

O'Neill sighed loudly, "I suppose I do. You're the man in the hot seat now, Hank. Oh, and in other good news, there's a representative from the international committee on his way."

"Thanks for the warning," Landry said dryly.

"You're welcome," O'Neill hung up.

Landry turned to her. "Was there something you needed, Carolyn?"

"Um-," She sudden wasn't sure exactly how to phrase her question. And he seemed to have already answered it anyway. How did you ask your father if he was planning to murder a man in cold blood?

"What is it?" He looked at her with concern.

"As a doctor-" she said. "I'm not really comfortable with the way we're treating Khalek."

Her father looked at her seriously. "If Dr. Jackson is right, Khalek is very dangerous. He'd certainly kill us if he got the chance."

"That doesn't make it right of us to -abuse- him," she said.

"We won't abuse him, Carolyn," her father said. "No one wants that. But if he has all the knowledge of Anubis, and worse, the will to do us harm? We can't let him go. SG-1 is right about that."

"Then what are we going to do with him?" Carolyn asked.

"I don't know," he tried to smile at her, but his eyes were as troubled as she felt.


	3. Chapter 3

Since the representative from the international committee had arrived, plans for refreezing Khalek had been shelved. Carolyn had reluctantly sedated Khalek while Major Altman was setting up an alien device he said would scan the man's brain during interrogation. Colonel Carter was connecting the device to a box she said transformed electricity into a form of power the machine could use. The only ones missing were Jackson and Teal'c, who had gone back to the alien lab.

Mitchell was completely focused on the man slumped in the chair, pointing one of the alien weapons at him unwaveringly.

"He's out cold, Colonel," Carolyn told him. "I gave him enough sedative to keep him out for hours."

"Can't be too sure," Mitchell replied.

Just then, Altman got the gadget to work. "That should be good," he said, as several rays shot out to penetrate Khalek's head.

The screen lit up with a representation of the brain, showing several red spots. Carolyn studied them, trying to figure out what they represented. Carter evidently already knew.

She said. "We're pretty sure these red patches indicate areas of the brain where synaptic activity is maximized." She turned to Mitchell, "A normal human brain, you or I say, should show roughly five to ten percent coverage."

Mitchell joked. "Me being five you being ten."

Carolyn tried to guesstimate the area covered by crimson. It looked like more than 10% to her.

Altman asked, "So what's that at now?" He studied the screen, "Sixty percent?"

"Sixty-eight, exactly," Carter said. "Daniel says that the research theorizes that eighty, possibly ninety percent activity was required for conscious willful ascension."

"So he's not there yet," Mitchell concluded.

Lam couldn't read the readouts, but surely that patch of red was new? As she watched, she was sure it was growing.

Carter shook her head. "Well no, but-"

Carolyn pointed at the screen, "Wait a minute, what's that? That wasn't there a minute ago."

Carter squinted at the readouts, "No, the percentage just jumped to seventy one."

"Are you saying this guy is just evolving before our eyes?" Mitchell asked incredulously.

Carolyn's attention was grabbed by the beeping of the monitor. If she hadn't given him all that sedative herself, she'd have said he was waking up. "His heart rate's increasing."

"I wonder if that has something to do with the brain scan device?" Altman wondered aloud. He moved over to it.

Lam was struck with a flash of memory.

_I'm trying not to make assumptions, she said._

_Better not to, O'Neill agreed._

And how many times had she told her people to go with the data, rather than what they knew? "I'm going to administer some more sedative," she said, moving over to the cart to get it.

Altman protested, "No, no- just a second, let me just make sure that there's no interference with the lines here-"

The screen beside him exploded with a bang, and Carolyn barely had time to realize Khalek was not only conscious, he was moving. And Mitchell's comment about super funky powers was sounding downright prescient, because the alien gun had just torn itself from Mitchell's hands and flown to Khalek.

Then Mitchell was diving to the floor. Carolyn was still looking toward Khalek, too stunned at the turn of events to even think about dodging. The blue flash dazzled her vision and seared every inch of her skin with agonizing pain. Her body convulsed with a shriek of abused nerves until blessedly, the corners of the room fuzzed out.

#

She awoke still on the floor, with Hamilton leaning over her. "She was just zatted," Mitchell said, with what she felt was remarkable callousness. "She'll be fine."

She looked around for Khalek. Mitchell and one of the guards had already secured the prisoner back in his chair before letting Torres and Baker treat his wounds.

Carolyn sat up, feeling very poorly. Her hands were shaking and her mouth was dry. Her nerves seemed to prickle from the memory of the zat charge as phantom shivers of remembered pain chased themselves down her limbs.

Hamilton was ignoring Mitchell and running his hands carefully over her head. "Any pain anywhere?" he asked. "Did you hit anything falling?"

"I don't think so," Carolyn said. She raised one hand to the back of her neck. "I may have pulled something. And I feel shaky all over."

"That's the zat," Hamilton said. "I'm told they really sting."

"That's an understatement," Carolyn said dryly. She didn't feel especially ready, but she climbed onto her feet anyway, finding them fortunately steady enough to hold her. Altman was on a gurney being wheeled out the door as she rose. She caught barely a glimpse of his face, singed, with blood running from half a dozen small wounds. Carmichael was walking alongside the gurney talking quietly to Altman.

She went to look at Baker's work, but it wasn't like the SGC never saw gunshot wounds. If nothing unusual happened, Khalek would be fine. His vitals were strong. She frowned. Too strong, for a man who'd been shot in that location.

Then she looked more closely at the area around the wound. The skin at the edges of the wound was starting to regenerate. The wound already looked a day old, and it was only- she looked at her watch- half an hour since he'd been shot.

Mitchell turned to her from a conversation with the guards. "Are you well enough to join us, doctor?"

"Join you where?" she asked.

"Briefing room," he replied. "Twenty minutes."

#

Back in the briefing room, the monitor still showed Khalek strapped to a chair, now with bandages.

Mitchell was looking at him in surprise. "I shot him. Twice. At point blank range."

Carolyn's neck was still sore. She rubbed it gently as she observed. "And he appears to be healing-" She glanced at her father. "Very quickly." She still couldn't believe the speed his wounds were closing. If there were some way to duplicate that effect for ordinary people....

Mitchell said, "I should have emptied the clip. I don't get it, sir. How can Woolsey not know that keeping this guy around is a bad idea?"

"He's an ass," Landry said.

"So what?" The colonel responded. "He's risking a catastrophe just to embarrass us?"

Carter protested. "Woolsey's a pretty straight shooter. I think he really believes this is going to be of benefit. We're the ones who have spent the last eight years justifying enormous risks for the advancements we've made."

Despite the stiffness in her neck, Carolyn couldn't help but see Woolsey's point of view. She said, "The fact is we are recording some incredible data. Khalek's healing ability has advanced his brain activity. That scanner was still operating when he was using his telekinetic ability, and we've been able to isolate the areas of the brain that he was maximizing at the time." She and Carter had pored over the data for nearly every minute before the briefing. They were pretty sure they'd identified all the basic neurotransmitters and were correlating them to the highly unusual activity in Khalek's brain.

Mitchell stuck to his guns. "See, I think the point is is that he has telekinetic abilities, and he's continuing to evolve while we sit around yammering about it."

"All the while he's getting closer and closer to ascending," Carter said.

Carolyn felt another little chill. It looked like the military was all on board with this now. And even she would have to say keeping Khalek at the SGC did not seem like a good idea. They were lucky no one had been killed.

"There may be a way to prevent Khalek from using his abilities," Carter said. She turned to Carolyn. As did the others.

Carolyn wondered what she had in mind.

"How, colonel?" Landry asked.

"If Dr. Lam and I are interpreting this correctly," she explained, "the scanner has shown us abnormally high levels of dopamine correlated to Khalek's use of his advanced abilities. If we administered a dopamine inhibitor, that should shut down his abilities to use those powers."

"That won't work," Carolyn protested automatically. Carter was right about the dopamine, but administering an inhibitor was more difficult than it sounded. She felt like she'd been suddenly brought down to Earth. Working with Carter on interpreting the brain scan had been exhilarating, even fun. Carolyn hadn't realized that the whole time she'd been rapt with discovery, Carter had been looking for ways to neutralize the threat Khalek posed.

Carter looked at her, "Why not?"

"Because dopamine administered intravenously doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier," she explained. "We'd need a way to inject it directly into the brain."

"And there isn't any way to do that?" Landry asked.

Carolyn stared at him for a moment. There was a way. Not a safe way. Where did her duty as a doctor end and her duty as a human being begin? She said slowly, "Well, theoretically we could install a shunt directly into the brain. But that's not a trivial procedure."

"It wouldn't be the first time experimental procedures have been done at the SGC," Carter said, with a hint of irony. She looked at the General.

He looked at Carolyn Lam. "If Khalek tries to exercise his abilities again, our only recourse is going to be to shoot him. Assuming we can. We were lucky no one has been killed so far. Are you willing to perform the procedure, Doctor?"

Not a hint of their relationship there. If she didn't approve it, it would happen anyway, Carolyn was sure of that. Most of her staff were military personnel, and they'd take orders for something like this. The question was- what was the lesser evil here? She pictured Altman, lying patiently in the infirmary while Carmichael put forty stitches in his face after removing the broken glass from the monitor. He'd have a few interesting scars. And who else might be hurt, the next time Khalek attempted to escape? It was likely enough some of her medical team would be in the line of fire. For that matter, wasn't drugging Khalek to prevent him hurting anyone else preferable to shooting him?

She looked from Landry to Carter to Mitchell, suddenly realizing no one was trying to push her into making a decision. They understood what they were asking, and were willing to let her think it through. Oddly enough, that helped her to make up her mind. She swallowed and said firmly. "Yes, I'll do it."

No one commented on the lengthy pause, Mitchell picked up the conversational ball as if it had never been dropped. "We'll want to take some other precautions as well," he said. He turned to Carter. "What about one of those Tokra force field things?"

#

Carolyn stood beside Woolsey in the observation chamber while the man explained the new security precautions to Khalek. "You should know there are now fifty thousand volts running through that floor, sir, and a Tok'ra field generator barring the door. It's one way. So we can still fire bullets in there if we have to. Finally, Dr Lam believes your abilities can be controlled with a dopamine inhibitor. A shunt has been inserted into the base of your skull and a massive dose will be automatically injected should you try anything else."

Carolyn wondered briefly if telling the prisoner about all the precautions taken to contain him was such a good idea.

Khalek replied. "Thanks for the warning, Richard. Or do you prefer Dick?"

Carolyn felt another shiver as the prisoner looked from Woolsey to her, then back.

"No, you didn't tell me your name," he continued. "Shame about Major Altman."

"He's going to be fine," Woolsey said.

Khalek looked knowing, "We'll see."

Woolsey blustered, trying to regain control of the conversation. "Any further outbursts will not be tolerated."

Khalek looked up at the. "Whatever you say- Dick."

Woolsey turned off the mike. "We'll just monitor him, Doctor. It's not likely he'll tell us anything willingly."

#

Landry strolled into the infirmary and stopped to say hello to Altman before crossing to the bank of monitors she was reviewing. She could just hear his cheerful greeting.

"Hello, Major. How are you feeling?" He stopped beside the man's bed.

Altman's eyes were just visible through the bandages covering the now-stitched cuts around his forehead and cheeks. "Not too bad, sir," he lied bravely. "I feel like a mummy. Stings a bit."

"It'll itch like hell soon enough," Landry remarked.

Altman laughed. "Don't I know it, sir. But I'll be back on duty in a few days."

More like a couple of weeks, Carolyn thought, but Altman hated being on the sick list as much as any of the military personnel here. He probably would be able to go back on light duty in a few days. It occurred to her to wonder when her father had gotten stitches, to know they would itch. Huh- she hadn't actually read his medical file yet.

But now Landry was coming over to talk to her and Woolsey. "Doctor. Any progress?"

She gave him a troubled frown. "We're collecting some interesting data. Colonel Carter just took our latest results and went back to the planet-"

"I'm aware of that," her father said.

Of course, he would be. She pulled up the latest brain-map. "As you can see from this chart, the areas of brain activity are continuing to grow. We've pegged his brain activity at just over seventy-eight percent."

"Isn't that getting dangerously close to what he needs to ascend?" Landry asked.

"As best we can tell, yes," she said. "We're currently feeding him a low dose of dopamine, just to make sure he can't try anything, but his level of brain activity has continued to rise."

"Let's go talk to Mr. Woolsey," the general said.

#

On the way to the observation chamber, Walter stopped her father with a message. She wondered how Walter had known where to find him. No one ever saw Walter hunting around for the general. He just walked briskly to wherever Landry was and gave him whatever message he had. The routine business of the SGC was handled so smoothly and matter-of-factly that most of the time she was barely aware of it. She saw the same thing in her own staff. She could see why her father found it scarily efficient, even while she enjoyed having such a competent staff to deal with the military bureaucracy.

As she entered the observation chamber, her eyes went at once to the monitor. It had risen again. Khalek was sitting with his eyes closed, apparently asleep, though the brain activity monitor belied that impression. "How long since it reached that level?" she asked.

"Not long," Woolsey said, sounding confident.

Her father followed her in a moment later.

"General," Woolsey greeted him.

Landry didn't mince any words, "I'm reconsidering the arrangement with the International Committee that's keeping you here."

Woolsey bristled, "Then I suggest you start going through your budget. Because without their support—"

"How can you still be convinced that this is the right course of action?" Landry asked.

Woolsey said, "The scans indicate his advancement has plateaued at roughly eighty percent of potential brain activity."

Carolyn interjected a note of caution, "That might have something to do with the dopamine inhibitor."

"How long are we going to keep this up?" Landry asked.

"Until we find a way to counteract someone with his abilities in the field," Woolsey replied.

Landry didn't look impressed. "According to your own account, the man was able to read your mind. Doesn't that concern you?"

Woolsey refused to back down. "Gravely. The fact that there are dozens of Priors with abilities like his roaming the galaxy right now also concerns me. And the Committee representing the free nations of this planet, General. For the moment, in my opinion, this situation is under control."

Landry shook his head. "I certainly hope that the point at which you change your mind isn't too late."

#

Carolyn was frankly relieved when she heard her father had bucked the committee successfully and Khalek was to be returned to his stasis chamber. If she weren't a scientist, she'd say the man gave her the creeps. She wondered if Ted Bundy or any of the other famous serial killers had been like this. And yet, by all the evidence, this man had killed no one. He simply wanted to.

The medical personnel had been ordered out of the chamber where he was being held, so the first inkling she had something was going wrong was the alarm. The proximity of her office to the observation chamber meant she was nearly first on the scene.

She swiftly took in the carnage, horror pushed aside while her professional instincts took over. Mitchell and two SFs lying unconscious in the hall. Two more guards motionless on the deactivated grid, with a seared meat smell in the air that told her it had been live when they'd fallen on it. Hamilton and another nurse were trying to restart their hearts but they were unlikely to succeed. It was only on television shows the defibrillator was frequently successful. In real life the success rate was only about five percent.

She moved to check Mitchell, who was closest. His eyes opened as she touched his head. He had a lump already forming. She looked at the way he and the others had fallen and realized he must have hit the wall hard enough to knock him out.

Carter and Jackson ran up, still wearing their off world field kits. Jackson put a hand out to help Mitchell to his feet. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just help me up," Mitchell replied a little fuzzily.

"No, you're not," Carolyn protested firmly. "You have a concussion. You need to stay put." She might as well have not bothered.

Mitchell said to her, "Look, my head can wait." He turned to Jackson and Carter. "We just finished securing him. He went nuts and killed two SFs."

"You think he could have heard us" Carter asked.

Jackson said, "He'll go for the Gateroom."

Carolyn's eyes narrowed as Mitchell started off in the wrong direction, but Jackson just grabbed him and turned him to face the other way, "Gateroom."

She turned back to her other patients. One of the two guards had a fractured skull. The other also had a concussion. They had just transferred them to infirmary beds when the lights dimmed and the backup system came on.

"We're on backup power," Hamilton said. "Don't worry, Doctor, we have triple backups in the infirmary."

Backup power was standard in hospitals. That they felt the need to put extra backups at the SGC said something about their level of paranoia. Carolyn wondered how many times before they'd had to use it.

It was only fifteen minutes before a security team brought down six more wounded and Khalek's body. Two more concussions- practically an epidemic of them today- a broken collarbone, a bruised tail bone- that soldier would be the, ah, butt, of some jokes, though certainly he'd be in pain for some time. The most serious injuries were two soldiers with gunshot wounds- ricochets, she found out from one of their uninjured colleagues. She had just got her new patients settled and noticed that several members of the security team were guarding the body when SG-1 arrived.

Colonel Carter was escorting Colonel Mitchell with a hand lightly resting on his elbow. Teal'c and Jackson followed behind them. "I've brought your patient back," she said lightly.

"Decided your head hurt after all, Colonel?" she asked.

Surprisingly it was Teal'c that answered. "Actually, Colonel Mitchell was experiencing some nausea in the briefing room."

"Or in other words, he barfed." Jackson translated. "A sure-fire one-way ticket to the land of sharp needles and bland food."

"Unlike good-looking alien women with mysterious artifacts, I suppose," Mitchell did look a little pale, but he was still talking.

Carolyn turned to Hamilton. "Have them set up a CT scan," she instructed.

"Is he secure?" Jackson asked.

Carolyn turned back in puzzlement to see that Jackson was talking to the head of the security team.

"Yes, sir." Sergeant Vasquez reported. "Dr. Carmichael confirmed that he was dead, and he hasn't shown any signs of coming back. They're packaging the body now for transport to Area 51 for study." He nodded briskly to SG-1 and headed for the door, leaving

Lam wondered if there was anywhere else on the planet where people talked so casually about the dead coming back to life. "Is Khalek reviving a serious possibility?" she asked.

Carter shrugged. "When you're talking about alien technology, it's best not to make assumptions," she said.

"General O'Neill said something like that," she said.

Jackson looked amused. "That sounds like Jack."

Carolyn looked at the four of them. "You were right- but it was still a big assumption, wasn't it? That he would be dangerous."

Jackson answered her seriously. "Not so big as all that. The Goa'uld have genetic memory. It isn't just like knowing how to fly a spaceship or read a strange language. They inherit the memories of all the Goa'uld that went before them. It...warps...them."

Carter shifted slightly closer to Jackson, an expression of -concern? Sympathy? Flickering across her face.

Teal'c looked at his friend solemnly.

Carolyn glanced at Mitchell, who was observing the same reaction she was, but not understanding it either.

"Anyway," Jackson said. "We should go. Landry wants to debrief us, and Mitchell's little mishap has already delayed things."

"I should be there," Mitchell said.

"I'm sure the general will excuse you under the circumstances," Jackson told him.

"That's not the point-" Mitchell protested.

"I feel certain that General Landry would prefer that you not -barf- again during the debriefing, Colonel," Teal'c said.

Carolyn stifled a grin, picturing her father's dismay if Mitchell say, threw up on his shoes.

Carter looked more sympathetic, but she too said. "It's for the best, really. Anyway, you weren't in on the plan until the end, anyway."

"Right," Mitchell sat on a gurney, looking rather disgruntled as his teammates left.

"Don't feel badly, Colonel," she said. "I wasn't planning to let you leave anyway."

He gave her a wry grin. "Gee, thanks, doc."

Carolyn opened her mouth to make an unflattering observation and then thought better of it.

Mitchell caught the motion and asked, "What?"

"I was about to be tactless," she said. "Never mind."

Mitchell laughed. "No really, I'm not that easy to offend."

She smiled back. "It just strikes me that SG-1 can't be an easy team to command."

Mitchell grimaced. "That was actually pretty tactful. Believe me when I say some days I feel like I'm rattling around in O'Neill's shoes." He looked up at her with a fierce light shining in his eyes, though, and there was no lack of confidence on his face.

Carolyn thought it must have been that determination that made O'Neill choose him-- the bedrock stubbornness that had brought him all the way back from the injuries that should have killed or crippled him.

"But y'know," Mitchell continued cheerfully after the pause. "O'Neill never actually commanded this team either. I don't think anyone could. But it surely is an honor and a privilege to be chosen to lead them."

Quite suddenly he went an interesting shade of pale green. The ever observant Hamilton appeared beside her with a basin just as she turned around to look for one, and she pushed it into Mitchell's hands.

"We're set up for the CT scan just as soon as Colonel Mitchell is ready," he told her.

Carolyn said automatically, "Thank you, nurse," as Hamilton smiled and moved briskly away. Her gaze fell on the soldiers guarding the room with the body in it. Despite the boring nature of their duty, they were clearly alert and ready for trouble.

She looked back at Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell, who was staring raptly into the empty basin and seemed to be winning the battle not to use it.

Carolyn had never been interested in joining the military herself. After getting dragged from base to base every two years until she was twelve, she'd decided it wasn't for her. But now she could see the appeal- the camaraderie, the trust. _But it surely is an honor and a privilege to be chosen to lead them._ For the first time, she wondered what O'Neill had seen in her during their brief meeting, that made him decide he could put the lives of his people in her hands.

She remembered her dad, worriedly confiding that he didn't know what they were going to do with Khalek. She had a feeling Mitchell wasn't the only one who sometimes felt that filling O'Neill's shoes was an overwhelming task. SGC personnel had to make some difficult decisions- sometimes in circumstances where there was no good answer, let alone a right one. But they certainly had chosen the best people they could to make those decisions. Including her father. She half-smiled, feeling an unfamiliar sense of pride.

She turned to look at Mitchell as he set aside the empty basin and wavered to his feet. "I'm ready."

She put a hand under his elbow as Sam had, and waved off Hamilton as she escorted Mitchell slowly toward radiology. She was supposed to have been off-shift...she glanced at the wall clock...about ten hours ago. But first she'd look at one more set of test results and make sure Mitchell hadn't dented anything seriously.


End file.
